Coutts has appointed Mark McFarland to the newly-created role of executive director and global chief economist.

Coutts, the UK private bank, has appointed Mark McFarland to the newly-created role of executive director and global chief economist.

McFarland, with more than 15 years’ global markets experience in London, Hong Kong and Dubai, has worked at Emirates NBD since 2010, where he was chief investment strategist and head of the wealth management investment strategy unit.  Before that, McFarland held chief economist roles in Asia with Santander and Swiss Re.  More recently, he worked for NAEEM, managing macro research at a Dubai-based hedge fund.

Based in Hong Kong and reporting to Gayle Schumacher, managing director and head of investment office, and locally to Gary Dugan, in his new role McFarland will work closely with Coutts’ three chief investment officers - Alan Higgins (covering the UK), Dugan (for Asia & Middle East) Norman Villamin (for Europe), to determine asset class views. McFarland will be responsible for the global leadership of Coutts’ economic view.

Headquartered in London, Coutts is the wealth division of Royal Bank of Scotland group and has 40 offices in a number of financial centres in the UK, Switzerland, the Middle East and Asia.